This invention relates in general to certain new and useful and required improvements in efficient and aesthetic methods to prevent conditioned air leakage, atmospheric air infiltration, moisture, rodents and insects.
The wall receiver seeks to help and improve current and future methods for improved long term optimal energy efficiencies in residential and commercial buildings and to follow the Residential and Commercial Energy Model Codes and the Residential and Commercial Building Model Codes.
In combination to the abovementioned, building fenestration has become an important energy efficient issue. The stoppage or minimization of outdoor atmospheric air coming into the building as well as the stoppage or minimization of indoor conditioned air leakage exiting the building, is a very important issue, as this negatively affects the controlled indoor building temperature and will make the cooling or heating mechanical systems work harder and longer and leads to more energy consumption.
There are also many associated performance installation challenges when wall penetration is required by refrigerant lines including, sealing, aesthetics, flexibility, isolation, vibration, degradation of the wall membrane and/or the refrigerant piping, or a combination of both. Many times, the multiple amounts of Air Conditioning or Heating Systems and their respective refrigerant piping are ganged up in one central location and make it difficult for the installer to install, seal, and protect from corrosion and/or degradation. Therefore, there is a need for a receiver that can accommodate refrigerant piping in a quick, efficient, aesthetic, single unit method and/or a systemic multiple battery gang method. These types of installations are common in single family dwellings, multi-family apartment type buildings, commercial buildings, office buildings, and where more than one unit system is installed in the same area.
There are many different ways that these installations are taking place, such as the recess boxing method; this is done by the installer having a metal box fabricated and embedded into the exterior wall and having the refrigerant piping going through it and then sealing all around with a urethane foam or other kind of sealant; however, this type of installation destroys any potential energy savings due to improper use of long term sealing, and aesthetically, the recess boxing method looks unsightly with unfinished cavities in the wall, and the hardened urethane foam materials fail and become cracked, which create air leakage gaps and further energy loss.
There are installations that are presently being used that make use of single inlet roof flashing, which get attached and are embedded into the rough membrane of the exterior wall and which are made of sheet metal, plastic or a combination. The flashing is used to contain an area for the refrigerant piping set to go through a single metal area and other flashing contain a neoprene resilient single area for the seal of the piping that stretches to accommodate different diameters.
However, there are several set-backs to these installation methods, which use metal-only flashing; not only does it become a necessity to seal for air leakage in the gap left between the piping and the annular metal area of the flashing, but this also creates is a very difficult hollow area to seal. These installations are presently being sealed with adhesive tape that fail in a very short time due to the constant vibration of these refrigerant pipes, and many times, there are left large voids; also, foam sealers, which are not intended for such use, tend to fail in a short period of time and leave large voids, which allows for vermin, rodents, air or moisture to enter the building. Roof flashing is also limited in that it does not allow the installer an option of attachment as the installation always has to be installed on the rough wall while construction is taking place; this can be a real problem if the installer misses or forgets to install during construction. The other limitation is that the single passageway holds a very thin area that requires a difficult angle to accommodate and lacks enough surface area continuance, which makes an efficient installation impossible; this is due to the combination of the flashings outer surface funnel shape and/or due to the lack of flexibility to receive piping from many times extreme and difficult directional angles to be received or accepted. In addition, whether a metal or plastic roof flashing is used or not used, the non-supported exterior wall flashing material, which gets terminated at the neck area radius of the flashing, creates a difficult and unsupported surface area to apply the seal materials. This all combines to create areas with unfinished material gaps, crevasses, and cracks that cause all of the above mentioned problems. The other limitation of roof flashings is the lack of flexibility that the single opening lacks as refrigerant piping address the wall from many different angles before going into or out of the exterior walls. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,267 Rodriguez and U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,681 Gilleran.
In addition, there is a final installation method that uses an exterior rigid plastic wall shield that is not always economically feasible. Most of the linear refrigerant piping is installed in the cavity of the exterior walls. Sealing to prevent air leakage and all the above mentioned issues are not a feature in that system. In addition there is a limitation with rigid shields as flexibility has become a challenge and an important requirement for full enclosure of these “hard to follow” piping patterns.
There is a need for a complete wall mounting receiver in the marketplace. The installer have been having to resort to “make shift” or custom fabrications or improper application type products that leave much room for improvement and are limited on sealing, aesthetics, attachment, vibration, isolation and are time consuming to the installer. Therefore, there is a need for a wall mounted receiver which is easy to install and highly efficient in operation.